1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to chemical materials, and more particularly to manufacturing processes for rice husk fiber synthetic resin powder and rice husk fiber products made therefrom.
2. Description of Related Art
Presently, most articles for daily use, such as tableware, furniture and kitchenware, as sold in the market, are made of plastic, timber and bamboo. These materials are disadvantageous for being not only expansive, but also against to sustainability. To be specific, plastic is also referred to as “white pollution” as it is undegradable in the Nature and tends to make soil impermeable. As to timer and bamboo, their use involves deforestation and waste-water pollution, thus being not environmentally friendly.
Particularly, the disposable tableware currently having extensive use is typically manufacturing from foam plastic that is foamed with Freon. As known, Freon has been identified as a factor of the observed ozone depletion. In addition, such foam plastic is extremely undegradable. China Patent Publication No. CN1212312A discloses degradable, disposable tableware and a manufacturing method thereof. This prior-art method uses husks or stems of crops as the raw material to be laminated under heat with urea-formaldehyde resin and melamine. However, melamine is expensive and likely to generate degradation products that harmful to the environment.
China is the No. 1 place of origin of rice, having an annual rice yield of 195 million tons, equal to 40% of its nationwide total grain yield, and 37% of the worldwide total grain yield. In this context, tens of mission tons of husks are peeled off from rice in China every. These rice husks have been traditionally regarded as agricultural waste, and are usually used as fuel or feed fillers for animals in the extensive rural area in China. For a long period, the use of rice husks have been undeveloped, making rice husks, as in fact valuable resources, totally wasted in vain.
On the other hand, in many developed countries, the applications of rice husks have been researched in depth, and include culture media for edible mushrooms, fuel for power generation, materials for cosmetics, food and chemical products. However, theses advanced applications of rice husks usually involve complicated processes that modify the nature of rice husks and then use the modified substances as new materials. There is little knowledge about “as-it-is” usage of rice husk. Thus, we do need a novel way to use rice husk as it is in mass manufacture.